Chapter Twenty #2
“I’m not ready for another relationship. I think I proved that yesterday in this room.” She took a breath and let it out before she said, “I see that your girlfriend is still staying here at the hotel.” She lifted a brow at him.
“Lolly is just a friend. I have no idea why she’s still here.”
Goldie doubted that was true. “Maybe she’s waiting for the café’s grand opening just like I am.” He seemed to grimace at the idea. “After all, she knows Arnie too, right?”
He’d never admitted that he knew Arnie exactly. “I doubt she knows him any better than I do. He’d only cooked back in the kitchen at the ranch a short while before I left to come up here and be with you.”
“You lived on the ranch with Malcolm Mandeville.” She hadn’t meant for it to sound so much like an accusation. “What is he like?” she asked as she took a chair to wait for his answer.
Donovan shrugged. “I hardly ever saw him. He’s not a real friendly guy.”
“Especially when you’re sleeping with his daughter under his roof, I would imagine.”
He groaned and met her gaze. “The truth? She had a boyfriend her father didn’t like. I was merely her cover.” Moving toward her, he grinned. “Are you jealous?”
She rolled her eyes. “What do you think?”
“I think you must be, otherwise what is this interest in Lolly and her father?”
He was suspicious of her questions. She could see it in his eyes and quickly shook her head. “Just making conversation. You’re right, being around Max brings out my suspicious nature. But I’m serious, Donovan, what will you do if I leave Dry Gulch sooner rather than later?”
“Move on,” he said as he sat down on the edge of the bed just inches from her. “I don’t want to. I would stay here with you as long as you needed me.”
She highly doubted that. As soon as whatever was going down with Mandeville here was over, she figured Donovan would be long gone and so would Lolly.
Maybe Arnie too. That thought surprised her.
What would happen to the café if Max was right, and they planned to blow through the basement wall into the bank?
“What if you could get your café back?” he asked, as if thinking the same thing she’d been thinking.
Goldie quickly shook her head. “I’ve realized that there is no going back. I’m done here.” She sighed. “I’m sorry I dragged you into my problems.”
“It’s been my pleasure, but are you sure you can just walk away?”
She wanted to ask him the same thing. She now knew his staying here had less to do with her. Mandeville was keeping him here. But why?
“Stay until after the grand opening,” Donovan said. “I still don’t think you can leave Max, this town, or your life here. If I thought you could, I’d take you wherever you wanted to go.”
She smiled, finally getting what she wanted from him. He didn’t want her to leave before the grand opening of Arnie’s. Which meant she was his cover for staying in town. They needed him here. But to play what part?
AS ARNIE PUT up the flyers all over town announcing his grand opening, he tried not to worry. Still, he couldn’t help being nervous. Everything he wanted so desperately, everything he’d dreamed of for so much of his life, was now on the line.
He had done his best not to panic as the grand opening date loomed. Yet earlier he’d weakened and called Malcolm. “I think the sheriff is getting suspicious.” His words had been met with dead silence that threatened to make his heart stop.
“Why would you say that?”
“He’s been asking a lot of questions about the remodeling at the café. He even mentioned that he suspected I might be planning to rob the bank.”
“He did, did he?” Malcolm had chuckled. “Arnie, just do your part. I’ll see you at the opening, and don’t call me again.” The line had gone dead, leaving him even more worried.
Someone was going to take the fall for this, and he didn’t want it to be him.
He couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being set up.
Malcolm had promised that if everything went as planned, the café would be his, free and clear, once this was over.
All he had to do was not panic—and follow the plan.
MALCOLM KNEW HIS first mistake had been thinking that he could control everything under his roof.
He’d put up with Lolly’s poor choices since she was a toddler.
He’d accepted that Bobby was never going to take over the empire he was building.
No wonder Luca thought he could step into the role—especially if he had Lolly on his side.
Adding an heir to that mix should have tipped the scales in Luca’s favor.
But clearly his second-in-command had underestimated what a coldhearted bastard Malcolm was. If he was right about Luca, then the man had been plotting against him for some time. That he’d involved Lolly in this, and now a baby, was unforgivable.
Just as Malcolm was about to call his daughter’s number, he saw her SUV drive up and park in front of the ranch house.
He’d told her to come back to the ranch right away after delivering his note to Donovan.
But of course she hadn’t. So, what was she doing here now?
He left his office to go downstairs, feeling an urgency that both surprised and scared him.
Lolly always did the opposite of what he told her to do.
His worry grew stronger as he watched her from the window in the front door as she climbed out of her rig.
He caught his breath, realizing that everything he’d worried about when it came to his only daughter felt as if it had come true.
He’d seen himself in her and that had terrified him and made him love her all the more.
Which was why he’d spoiled her, wanting to give her everything.
He’d made so many mistakes when it came to Lolly and feared he was about to make another one as he threw open the front door and waited for her to come up the steps.
HER FATHER LOOKED larger than life standing in the sprawling ranch house doorway. It made Lolly stop and turn her back to him for a moment as she drew on her strength to face him. What happened next would change their relationship forever. The thought squeezed her heart, making it hard to breathe.
“I told you to come right back to the ranch after you delivered my letter,” he said, having moved directly behind her.
His tone was one she’d never heard before, at least never directed at her. She turned slowly to face him. “I’m pregnant.”
For a moment his eyes widened, then narrowed, his brow furrowing with what could have been pain but was probably fury. “Who—”
“Luca Havers.”
Rearing back as if taking a blow, he shook his head. She could tell that he’d suspected but that he hadn’t wanted to believe it. Or maybe he couldn’t stand the thought of a baby being involved. She saw raw pain in his expression and hated that she’d put it there.
“I don’t know what you have going on in Dry Gulch, but Luca’s planning to double-cross you. He wants you out of the picture so he can take over either by forcing you out, getting you arrested or killing you.”
Her father didn’t seem surprised to hear that. “And you know this how?” he said from between clenched teeth.
“Because I’m your daughter. I’m more like you than you think. It’s why I stayed in Dry Gulch and why I’m going back. I plan to stop him.”
He stared at her. “You plan to stop him?”
“He thinks I’m still in love with him and that I will do whatever he tells me to do, foolish woman that I am.
” Her father raised an eyebrow as if agreeing about the foolish part.
“I think I felt something for him at first. It wasn’t just about rebelling, at least I don’t think it was.
But I don’t anymore.” Her hand went to her slight baby bump.
She shook her head, thinking about the offer Donovan had made her.
She’d felt so touched, yet she never wanted him to know how close she’d come to tears. “Luca and I, not anymore.”
“What do you need from me?” he asked after a moment.
“Whatever you’re planning to do during the grand opening of Arnie’s café, keep Donovan out of it.”
“Donovan?” Malcolm shook his head. “Didn’t Luca tell you the plan?”
“All I know is that he bought a whole lot of explosives from one of the crew members working on the Dry Gulch hotel swimming pools. I’m assuming he plans to blow something up with you in it.
” Lolly saw her father’s expression and smiled.
“I take it getting blown up wasn’t part of your plan for Arnie’s grand opening? ”